I'm a London-based freelance business journalist writing for the UK broadsheet press. I'm also the author of 'The New Rules of Business', a book revealing the secrets of a range of entrepreneurs, and founder of the news website Minutehack.com.
Titles I have written for include The Daily Telegraph, The Times, Raconteur Media, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Real Business Magazine, The Marketer and LaunchLab.co.uk - a title I launched in 2007, which went bust in 2010.
I like clever entrepreneurs who create useful things and give people jobs. I don't like businesses that make money at the expense of people without doing anything good; I'm sure you can think of a few.

How Effective People Use Social Media

About 99 per cent of professionals fail to optimise the way they use social media. That’s a made-up fact but it’s likely to be true. The main problem is that human beings are vain and while as executives we pretend that our online life is All Business, really we’re hoping people follow, friend or otherwise connect with us because it’s life affirming.

I admit, for instance, that I look at the number of people who viewed my articles on Forbes just about every day, which is an enormous waste of time, but in my head every half-interested glance at my work is a rung on the ladder towards the writing notoriety I sub-consciously crave.

Every follower (read: endorsement) on social media is a clap. Lots of followers equals lots of claps and thousands of followers is like a rousing standing ovation.

Beware: these can be time hoovers (Photo credit: Jason A. Howie)

It’s the same for people who don’t write for a living – yes that means you – because the need to be exceptional (a thought leader, an educator, a motivator – yawn) is as strong in adulthood as it was when you vied with others for the love and attention of your primary school pals.

This makes people do awful things online that they wouldn’t do in the real world. An example? How about writing a status update bemoaning the inconvenience of having to attend another gala dinner, industry event or present to another packed room of people, when in fact you’re dying for folks to recognise that these are life achievements and you are better than them.

Then there’s the humble brag: “How silly, my Twitter profile has just been verified – I’m not worthy”.

People can become obsessive. On LinkedIn, if someone strays onto your profile it’s not because of vague interest or mistaken identity, it’s because they want to recruit you to a senior position at the Whitehouse or buy your business for millions of dollars. You search for reasons as to why they are there – what could it mean?

The problem I am describing is that it’s very easy to mistake building a social media presence that is professional and helps your career, for a mechanism that massages your ego every day. It’s too easy to waste precious time looking for ‘well done’ signals from your peer group instead of doing things online that genuinely produce results.

People who use social media efficiently, and there aren’t many of them, are those who can bypass the urge to use it as a device to gauge where they stand in the world. People who are strict, get in and out, post lightly and often, and who don’t obsess win every time.

Again, this is not my approach. I’m @dan_matthews on Twitter by the way.

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